Bishops Meet To Examine `60s Reforms

November 24, 1985|By Bruce Buursma, Chicago Tribune.

VATICAN CITY — Under the dome of St. Peter`s Basilica, key Roman Catholic leaders will gather Sunday for the ceremonial opening of a closed-door summit that may profoundly affect the course of the 800-million-member church.

The broad agenda set by Pope John Paul II for the two-week conference centers on an examination of the church`s Second Vatican Council, the landmark ecumenical session that convened here from 1962 to 1965 and touched off an era of unprecedented reform and innovation in the world`s largest Christian denomination.

Those far-ranging and generally liberalizing changes in doctrine and practice will be up for discussion when the pontiff convokes the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops, composed of 170 prelates, for its first working session Monday.

The church`s College of Cardinals, concluding a three-day meeting with the Pope here Saturday, disclosed that the Vatican is expected to run up a $50 million budget deficit this year, much worse than the previous record $28 million deficit in 1984.

In a statement, the cardinals urged the world`s Catholics to give more generously in order to stem the rising tide of red ink, which they said is threatening to curtail the Pope`s ``mission of service to the church and humanity.``

John Paul`s unexpected call last January for a synod to study the results of Vatican II has provoked a spirited exchange among Catholic theologians, clergy and lay members who are unsure of his motive.

The apprehension has mounted despite the Pope`s assurances that he regards Vatican II as ``the fundamental fact in the life of the modern church`` and a personal ``constant reference point of every pastoral action`` he has undertaken in his seven-year pontificate.

In calling the synod, the Pope expressed his hope that the meeting could recapture the atmosphere of unity and purposefulness that marked Vatican II.

But to the alarm of some liberal Catholics who have voiced concern that the synod may signal a turning away from the liturgical experimentation and theological adventurism of the last two decades, the Pope said the meeting`s purpose would be to ``promote the further study and the constant incorporation of Vatican II into the life of the church in light of new exigencies.``

During his trip to the Low Countries last May, the Pope perhaps hinted at the ``new exigencies`` when he declared that ``to the extent that some have studied, interpreted or applied (the teachings of Vatican II) badly, this has been able to cause here or there disarray and division.``

More recently, the Vatican`s chief theological watchdog, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has assailed what he described as a ``process of decadence`` taking root in parts of the church ``under the slogan of a so-called `spirit of the council.` ``

Cardinal Ratzinger`s bleak analysis of current trends in Catholicism

--though far short of representing a wholesale indictment of Vatican II

--has nevertheless fueled speculation that there is fresh interest in reasserting centralized authority and discipline at church headquarters here. The bishops of England and Wales, in a statement issued before the synod, decried a ``lack of tolerance and a certain new fundamentalism`` in the church.

American bishops, adopting a less aggressive tone, asserted that the American church is largely ``on the right track`` in implementing the teachings of Vatican II.

The bishops of Ireland, in a pastoral letter released last week, added their collective voice against retrenchment, saying they were interested in building a church that is ``less complacent, less preoccupied with the institutional, less in control of every situation. . . . We see a church of community and of participation as the way of faith in the future.``

Since Vatican II, the church has seen pressure in the U.S. to allow marriage for priests and the ordination of women, as well as political activism among priests and nuns in Latin America and adoption of tribal customs in the African mass.

Chicago`s Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, in Rome for the just-concluded meeting of the College of Cardinals but not among the Americans appointed by the Pope to the synod, lamented that widespread ``paranoia has developed`` in anticipation of the meeting.

``People are talking as though somehow the synod is going to turn around completely that which was accomplished`` at Vatican II, he said. ``But the fact is that the synod is a consultative body and cannot touch the teachings of an ecumenical council.``

In an address this month at the Catholic University of America in Washington, Cardinal Bernardin asserted that the synod, which is to adjourn Dec. 8, is ``meeting for too short a time to become a court of last resort``

for those who hold differing interpretations of the legacy of Vatican II.

But he conceded that the synod will ``set a tone, establish themes and undoubtedly influence how we will move as a church in the last 15 years of this century.``

The U.S. delegation here is led by Bishop James Malone of Youngstown, Ohio, a moderate churchman who is president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. Others in the group include John Cardinal Krol of Philadelphia and Bernard Cardinal Law of Boston, both regarded as

conservatives. Cardinal Krol was named by the Pope to serve as one of three co-presidents of the synod.